


Watchman

by FireEye



Category: Baldur's Gate
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-21
Updated: 2012-12-21
Packaged: 2017-11-21 20:59:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/602005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireEye/pseuds/FireEye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Somewhere, between the tortured depths below and the dirty city streets of Athkatla above, he’d stopped talking altogether.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Watchman

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Blueinkedfrost](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blueinkedfrost/gifts).



Somewhere, between the tortured depths below and the dirty city streets of Athkatla above, he’d stopped talking altogether.

He was always in arms’ reach.  At her shoulder, while they scoured the city for pitiless jobs.  Between her and the enemy’s blade in combat.  He sat outside her door while she slept, sharpening his sword or inspecting the dents upon his shield.

He listened when she spoke, he ignored all else.  He watched for danger against her, he ignored all else.

He watched Yoshimo one night, when the scoundrel came up to her door and paced the hall.  Eventually, Yoshimo sat across from him and watched him back.

Kivan spoke to him one afternoon, in deep tones while they shared bread and water.  He neither answered nor turned away, and what was said was kept between them.

Minsc lunged at him one morning, taking him by the shoulders and shaking him, yelling and mourning, blaming and commiserating.  By the end, the large human had slumped against him, sobbing and silent, while he stood for them both.

When she said they were leaving the city and its filth and its desperation behind, he looked to the stars, half-hidden from the smoke of the houses and light of the torches.  They packed their meager belongings and rations and coin, heading in no direction but away – away from the slums and the temples and the taverns and the calls for adventurers.

As Athkatla faded into the distance behind them, she walked first and he walked at her shoulder.  The paving stones turned to gravel and grass, and they walked on.  They turned off the roads into the cool night shadows of the forest, not stopping for food or rest or for the brigands that waylaid their path, to their own foolish doom.

They reached the river as the sun rose over the trees, light casting color in the morning mists.  Without calling for a halt, she staggered forward and stripped of bow and blade, cloak and clothes, and dove into the icy mountain stream.

Kivan hesitated, scanning the treeline of the opposite shore, before following her example and following her into the water.

He caught Yoshimo staring, and the latter scoffed at elven forest nonsense before disappearing to his own ends in the surrounding forest.  By then, Minsc, too, had leapt into the river, causing small waves to crash upon the bank.

He breathed deep of the morning mist.  Stepping out of his battered boots, at the waters edge, he sat on the shore and let the river wash over his trail-worn feet.  He watched as the daughter of Bhaal frolicked, as Kivan cleansed himself, and as Minsc wooed his rodent on the shore, trying to entice the small beast to water.  He listened to the birds, and the river, and the rustling breeze through the pine needles.

For a moment, as he watched and listened and breathed, there was no danger, nothing to ward against, only peace.

The first tear of mourning trickled down his cheek.  Sighing, Khalid scrubbed it away, heedlessly encouraging more to follow.

**Author's Note:**

> Never thought it was fair that you didn't have a choice. Or more simply, a randomizer to decide who lived and who died. Because, goshdarnit, I love Jaheira and Minsc, but I love Khalid and Dynaheir too. :(


End file.
